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Friday, 4 November 2011

Head Lice Suck

OK, so what did I say the other week? I said my fragrant offspring don’t have nits, didn’t I? I BOASTED this. In my blog. In public. Like the stupid, smug cow that I am. And all the while, in a bid to make mummy look a numptee and a liar, my boy child was hatching an army of head lice from infinitesimally small eggs in secret. The DIRTY...LITTLE...BUGGER. Suddenly I find I am hostess to new family pets that I am inadvertently feeding and housing using my child’s and my own head. Eeuw.

Small boy-child cultivated a lot of these bastards. He has a very hairy head. Plenty of room at the inn. Then, because children are loving and giving, he donated three of the crawly little fuckers exclusively to me. Thanks, Nitty Norman. Your Horrormoanal 40 year old mother has inadvertently taken three head lice on a free holiday to the other side of the world. I don’t know if I should be angry that I have been infested or pleased that I got three extra passengers to go on an all inclusive holiday for nowt. Mind you, they didn’t eat or drink much apart from my blood but they did get to go swimming every day and dance to Kool n The Gang at the hotel disco.

Perhaps some of you reading this will have been through Nit-gate yourselves, but I’ll guess you’ve never had to cope with this affliction while simultaneously having a rampaging kidney infection. It was my weekus horribilis. I, ill person with failing vital organs and alcohol withdrawal symptoms, had to bend over (ouch) to delouse an unwilling six year old, who HATES having his barnet interfered with at the best of times. For an hour and a half I tried to sort through his long and lustrous locks and pick the eggs out by hand because the tines on my nit comb were too far apart to pick up the grotty appendages with combing alone. He cried and struggled. I gave him the finger when he wasn’t looking because I felt bad about telling him to fuck off and sit still but I still really wanted to. I was ANGRY. Mainly at the lice for infesting my furry baby child. How DARE they? But also at the boy for bringing this shit into my nice clean house when I’d warned him not to rub heads with other children at school. Why does being a boy have to be a contact sport?

We bought Hedrin and did the greasy overnight thing. I nitcombed the rest of us with the rubbish comb. Where the comb failed, my eyes, which work with the help of strong spectacles, told me who was OK and who wasn’t. Fortunately, my daughter, who is like cousin It from the Addams Family, and my husband, who nowadays has only slightly more hair on his head than on his knackers, were both nit free. I trusted my judgement. Dismayed, I knew the small boy still had eggs that I couldn’t get to with my fat fingers and I knew, having had 3 live lice, that I probably still had nits. But I had to rely on my husband to nit comb my very curly, lacklustre locks. He is not a very fastidious man. When he said I was in the clear, I knew he was talking shit - like when I ask him, “have you emptied the kitchen bin?” and he says, “It doesn’t need it,” and all he has done is squash the contents of the very overloaded bin right down so there’s a free inch left on top.

It'd better bloody work for a tenner!

Just when I thought we were all doomed to permanent infestation like a cheap B&B in Blackpool, a friend recommended the Nitty Gritty Nit Free comb. Now, let’s get one thing straight. This isn’t a sponsored blogpost. If I say something’s good, it’s because I think it is good. The Nitty Gritty was the only thing to pick the tiny eggs out of our hair. It cost over a tenner at Boots but it was worth it because now I think I can get on top of this embarrassing affliction, which is surely worse than the time I got scabies from falling down a pothole in East Anglia.

So if you find yourself scratching like a stag party in Amsterdam, you know what to do now, don’t you? Don’t say the Horrormoanal Woman doesn’t do you any favours!

A weekus annus! I love it. Sounds like an affliction in itself, rather like piles. I see you're no stranger to nits. Have you had an infestation lately from your hairy small ones?...ahem, I mean children.

This is hilarious - though probably funnier for me than for you. My offspring now thankfully old enough to sort out any nit problems on their own. My only encounter when they were at school was just before a friend came to visit with her two kids. Now that's how to make guests feel welcome.

Did you confess to the friend or keep shtum and wear a manic grin? I thought it was best to alert all of my son's friends' parents immediately. Unfortunately, kids being kids, I suspect he's now the butt of all humour in the playground but I thought it only fair to warn others. So gross! I think we're in the clear now.

About Me

Maturing like a strong stilton and just on the wrong side of 40, I grew up on one of the roughest estates in Manchester. But with the gift of a good brain and the ability to talk rubbish in several different languages, I ended up with a degree from Cambridge University in German and Dutch.
I have been a punk, a trainee rock star, a pretend artist, a wannabe renovator of houses and a professional fundraiser but now I write novels for children and adults. I am represented by Caspian Dennis at Abner Stein.
My general author's website is www.marnieriches.com . Please drop by!